Dipstik's complete photo guide to tuning ski's

[dipstik]

Version 2 is now online at: www.SkiTuning101.com

The new thread is here: http://tetongravity.com/forums/showt...=1#post2114779


Since I was gonna fix up my skis this weekend anway, I figured I'd document it and post it up here with some instructions. I hope this is helpful and hope that I didn't just waste 6 hours of my time putting this whole thing together. It's got some basic tuning info and some pictures that should serve as a guide. There are lots of tricks and different styles that different people will tell you, I find the ones I used are most generic and most should agree on them. Perhaps if I get a lot of positive feedback on this I could ask ONS to make it a sticky for a little while so that more people can learn from it. Anyway, enjoy.

Here we have all the equipment. It is, from left to right: Horsehair brush, brass brush, nylon brush, scraper, wax, iron, multi-purpose file guide (swix xactor), fine diamond stone, medium diamond stone, pocket stone. red gummi stone, steel scraper, matches, candle, P-tex stick, brake retainers. (not shown is fibertex, it's a lot like a scotch brite pad)

Some things to know before your start: when you are doing any type of work on your ski, make sure to do it from tip to tail. Also, you need a file guide if you want to do edge work.



For doing p-tex repair work (filling in gouges in your ski base) You will want to do as follows: light a candle and allow p-tex stick to warm up and catch fire, next, you will hold the p-tex candle close to the base of the ski and allow p-tex to drip off the candle onto your base. After this, allow it to cool and then use a metal scraper to remove the p-tex as much as possible so that the base is even. Next, run some fibertex over the repair to knock down any (microscopic) p-tex hairs that would be sticking up.







The picture below should also be in the base prep section, but they all would not fit. This is just a basic idea of how to use fibertex so that you get it to work each part of the ski evenly.



Next, you want to sharpen your edges. A common misconception is that you need to file your edges to get them sharp. This is wrong, you should normally just run some stones down the edges and they will become sharp. If you file all the time, you will wear down your edges very quickly. The following are pictures of 4 basic edge tools. From left to right they are : Swix pocket stone, file, medium grit diamond stone, fine grit diamond stone. These 4 tools will get most of the work done. First you start off with the pocket stone to take down any huge burrs or damage, then just work your way down from the medium grit to the fine grit diamond stones. (called deburring) Always remember to use a file guide, and to do your base edges beore your side edges. Another helpful point is to wet the diamond stones with water before using them, as it will prevent them from getting built up with dirt.





Use a gummi stone if there is a lot of rust on your edges, or if there is a section of damage that you want to dull out before using your stones. You can also use it to deburr if you plan on skiing on very very very soft groomed stuff, or if you prefer a duller less grabby edge.



A good easy way to tell if your edges are sharp is to scrape your finger nail over them as shown below. You will know if they are sharp if some of your nail comes off. The amount of nail that came off in the picture is exagerated (scraped off a lot of nail) so the concept can be easily understood.




Next you want to prep your bases for waxing. Make sure to clean off any edge material or dirt that may have gotten onto your skis using a paper towl and some water, I find a spray bottle to work well. After this you will want to brush the base with a brass brush to open up the structure, and then use fibertex to knock down all the little p-tex hairs. I find if you lay a scraper over the fibertex you will be able to get more out of it

(not enough room for pictures)

Now you want to begin to wax your skis. You basically take a brick of wax, hold it to the iron, and allow it to drip on the ski base. After this, you make a quick pass with the iron to allow the wax to spread out. Following this, a longer slower pass with the iron is needed to allow the wax to melt into the base. These longer passes depend on the wax. If you are using a cold temp wax like CH6 or CH4, the passes will need to be longer than if you were using CH10, CH8, or universal wax. There should be a trail of liquid wax after the iron passes by it, but it should very quickly after then turn from a clear liquid into a cloudy white solid. (this is not shown in any of the pictures)

When you are done applying the wax, allow the skis to cool. It is usuallly wise to start work on your other ski while the freshly waxed one cools.

Note: Do not allow waxes such as CH4 or CH6 to cool. They should be scraped soon after they are waxed, while they are still warm, CH4 especially.
Note 2: The amount of the wax used on the ski in the picture is much more than should normally be used.

Version 2 is now online at: www.SkiTuning101.com



This (below) is about the right about of wax you want to have on your ski before you iron it all in, maybe a little bit more. Sometimes it is helpful to "crayon" the wax over the base of the ski so that the base does not get burned. Here I am using a soft wax, so it spread out easily eliminating the chance for the base burning






When the wax has cooled, you begin to scrape. Hold the scraper as shown and scrape as much wax as possible off of the ski base. I find that having a 2 scrapers is a benfit, I use the older duller one for initial scraping, and the newer sharper one for final scraping.

note: don't forget to scrape the wax off of the sidewalls and edges of your skis.





Next you brush. Brushing allows you to open up the structure of your ski and allows you to polish your bases, which will make the ski glide more effeciently. Brushing is commmonly skipped, but it is an essential step to waxing.

First start out with a hard bristled brush, I prefer brass or nylon, and make about 20 or more overlapping pass along the length of the ski. Then finish up with 20 passes of the horsehair brush to polish it all off. When you brush with bras/nylon, you should see small bits of wax getting kicked up behind your brush, this is a good sign.






When all is said and done, you should be able to spray water onto your bases and see it ball up like shown below. Another cool thing is that if you spray water onto your bases like shown, you will easily be able to blow it off, leaving the base perfectly dry. It's neat-o.





Anyway, good luck.

Version 2 is now online at: www.SkiTuning101.com

[The Jackamo]

on some scrapers they have a little square chunk taken out of one of the corners so you can get excess wax off you edges. nice little how-to, stik

[Tical]

Nice work Dip!

[Mustonen]

when scraping off extra p-tex i find that it helps to work from the middle of the repair... less likely to pull the whole thing out.

and, dude, einstein in it keep for simple, you don't have to scrape.

[summit]

Kickass job on the guide, dipstick!!!

Our Shops method (unfortunately not using tools above):

Ptex:
Plug in Ptex gun (clear or black depending, resembles a hot glue gun)
Dry grind ski over the belt grinder 1-3 times depending on appearance of base and edges (3 especially if any areas look edge high)
Squeeze Ptex into all hits, pressing down with a small metal plate afterwards if the hit is deep.
Use razor to trim any ptex off edges.
Use sureform to knock down large amounts of ptex.
Use rolling planar to knock down ptex to base level.
Use shank to get any remaining ptex (especially on tip and tail where the planar fails).

If belt finishing, dry grind 1-3 times as needed to remove remaining base work.
If stone grinding, run through stone grinder to smooth ski.

Edge + Wax:
Run ski full length through edge belt grinder 1-2 times to turn down burrs.
If any massive burrs stick out to the side still, use stone to knock them off (rare).
Dry grind 1-2 times if edges are rusted or if no base work was done and there is base damage.
If belt finishing, wet grind ski 2-3 times to remove burrs and turned down burs and then make the last pass being very light pressure for a fine finish.
If stone grinding, run through stone grinder as appropriate.

Adjust the angle on the edge bevel tool appropriatly and run down from tip to tail as needed.

Switch file to bevel the base and adjust the angle and run down from tip to tail as needed.

Run detuning stone back and forth 2 times on the top and bottom 2-3" of edge and one additional run tip to tail full length if a lot of sharpening has been done to prevent from catching an edge.

Drip wax onto ski. Melt wax into ski (melting extra wax into gashes if base work was not ordered). Let cool. Scrape sidewalls/edges (all of our scrapers have the notches). Scrape bases appropriatly. Rub bases with cork (racing technique) and then with scotchbrite pads to texture.

Every place has a different technique.

[MT]

No beer in the pictorial ?

[Will]

One trick I've learned when doing p-tex repairs without the gun is that the p-tex melts and adheres to the base better when it burns with a blue flame. When it's burning orange the p-tex seems to carbonize a bit or something, and doesn't leave as good of a repair.

Holding a metal scraper close to the p-tex stick dampens the flame a bit and keeps it burning blue. The flame in Dipstick's pictures seems to be about the right size.

[dipstik]

Originally posted by Will
One trick I've learned when doing p-tex repairs without the gun is that the p-tex melts and adheres to the base better when it burns with a blue flame. When it's burning orange the p-tex seems to carbonize a bit or something, and doesn't leave as good of a repair.

Holding a metal scraper close to the p-tex stick dampens the flame a bit and keeps it burning blue. The flame in Dipstick's pictures seems to be about the right size.

Yeah I tried to get the flame blue, but I was using a camera with a timer so it was tough to coordinate things. I find that no matter what I do though, my p-tex repairs don't hold 100%, and always need a little work each time I wax my skis.

[Will]

Originally posted by dipstik
Yeah I tried to get the flame blue, but I was using a camera with a timer so it was tough to coordinate things. I find that no matter what I do though, my p-tex repairs don't hold 100%, and always need a little work each time I wax my skis.

Yeah, it takes patience, care and luck to get some p-tex repairs to stick.

I've heard though, that the p-tex candle material doesn't absorb wax as well as the regular base material. Frequent p-texing, filling every little scratch and divot, actually isn't that great for your ski bases.

This might be a concern for racers only though. Any ski-tech nerds want to back me up on this?

[Will]

Sorry, a bit twitchy on the "submit post" button.

[dude_le_skibum]

i haven't read all the post but someone once told me that burning the p-tex makes it loose some of its attributes...

[gonzo]

good work guy!

massholes know how to tune skis.

[summit]

Ideally you would heat ptex, not burn it. HOwever, ptex guns aren't cheap. A ptex gun is the weapon of choice for all but he smallest cosmetic hits where sometimes blue flamed ptex is better.

[Dr. Crash]

Ptex gun = $130. But a gas-powered soldering iron with a flat tip and a few strips of p-tex is $35 (SKS). Don't try to buy a cheap one with a conic tip, it just doesn't work (I tried the cheap way, yes).

drC

[dude_le_skibum]

i like to use a propane torch and a little palette that they use to put the putty over the screws of g-prock. heat that with the torch and then melt the ptex with that.

also a great "on the road" fixer is expoxy. it does a nice job and you can repair it properly when ya get home.

[dude_le_skibum]

edit :

a good way to know not to take off too much edge is to use a black marker and color it. when the black is gone everywhere you know you have take a even amount of edge off.

[ak_powder_monkey]

I generally agree except, instead of a paper towel use a brass wire brush to clean off the ski, also you should never scrape off wax before it cools even CH 4 and 6 unless you are trying to clean the pores on your ski but if you do that you need to wax again, also with real cold wax you should bring the skis out side for about 5 minuted after you scrape, bring the ski inside then rescrape and nylon brush with white then blue always work tip to tail except with nylon brushes.

[BakerBoy]

What can you do to fix these skis?

[summit]

Ptex (maybe some baseweld) and full tune

[FLEX]

Originally posted by BakerBoy
What can you do to fix these skis?

Well,.....I just did this repair at home.

[FLEX]

this one

[FLEX]

the results.............

[FLEX]

the results.........

[summit]

FLEX. cool job, but i don't think he has a blown out edge. Cool repair though.

[road trip]

bump... should be a PAGE 1 for life thread...